Paola Antonelli (born 1963 in Sassari, Sardinia, Italy) is an Italian author, editor, architect, and curator. She is currently the Senior Curator of the Department of Architecture & Design as well as the Director of R&D at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City. Antonelli was recognized with an AIGA Medal in 2015 for "expanding the influence of design in everyday life by sharing fresh and incisive observations and curating provocative exhibitions at MoMA". She was rated one of the one hundred most powerful people in the world of art by Art Review and Surface Magazine. Although a recipient of a laurea degree in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano university in 1990, she has never worked as an architect. Antonelli has curated several architecture and design exhibitions in Italy, France, and Japan. She has been a contributing editor for Domus magazine (1987–91) and the design editor of Abitare magazine (1992–94). She has also contributed articles to several publications, among them Metropolis, the Harvard Design Review, I.D. magazine, Paper, Metropolitan Home, Harper's Bazaar, and Nest. In 2014 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art. Career Lecturer From 1991 to 1993, Antonelli was a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she taught design history and theory. In the spring of 2003, she started to teach a course of design theory at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She has also lectured elsewhere on design and architecture in Europe and the United States and served on several international architecture and design juries. Curator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York Antonelli joined MoMA in February 1994 and is a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design there. Her first high-profile exhibition for MoMA, "Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design" (1995), was followed by "Thresholds: Contemporary Design from the Netherlands" (1996), "Achille Castiglioni: Design!" (1997–98), "Projects 66: Campana/Ingo Maurer" (1999), "Open Ends," and "Matter" (September 2000-February 2001). Her exhibition "Workspheres" (2/8-4/22/2001) was devoted to the design of the workplace of the near future. In 2005 she curated the exhibition entitled "Safe: Design Takes on Risk" for MoMA. She curated the exhibition entitled "Safe" in 2005 based on her show at the International Design Conference in Aspen (August 20–23, 2003), similarly entitled "Safe: Design Takes on Risk." Other recent projects include a book about food from the world over, as examples of